catastrophic impact. here's what we do know right now. 18 people are confirmed dead. that number is changing by the hour. it's very fluid. damage, though, is already estimated upwards of $20 billion, with the devastation stretching from the carolinas to new england and power is out for nearly 8 million all across that same area and it could be out for days. new jersey shouldered the brunt of the blow of sandy's streets in the town of moonockie. >> in little ferry we dispatched state and federally supported teams to assist in rescues and providing shelters of those in need. the delve of devastation at the jersey shore is unthinkable. >> the winds from these storm may fuel flames from spread from one to 50 houses in a massive six alarm fire in queens. firefighters struggled to contain it while wading in

ankle-high water. it's rarely seen in this city that never sleeps. sandy set a 13-foot high wall of water rushing through new york harbor and that water pouring into the subway tunnels. the head of the mta calling it the worst damage seen in the 100-year history of public transit here in the city. >> in a most dramatic fashion, sandy's winds caused a twisted crane to dangle perilously more than 70 floors up over midtown manhattan. look at that. emergency crews worried that it would slice through like a hot knife through butter. >> when i saw is the reports of the firefighters in queens or downtown manhattan i could see in my mind's eye not only the buildings and the planes, but the people. >> it's a lot to get you up to speed on and we are waiting for mayor michael boomberg to speak,

and we do want to get the latest from the jersey shore which as we told you took the direct hit from sandy as that storm came ashore near atlantic city in the southern part of new jersey. nbc's ron allen has been reporting from new jersey and what are you seeing now that we have the light of day to see the damage. >> reporter: we're seeing a lot of devastation here, thomas. it looks leak i'm standing on the beach and this is one of the main streets in town about a block and a half or so from the ocean, but all of the sand was washed up last night when the dunes that protect this town basically gave way and the ocean rushed up on the streets that lead into the town. if you look further down this street you can see off in the distance a bulldozer already out here trying to clear a lane because it's very difficult to get out of this area and back up into the rest of the community, actually. many of the streets going in that direction are flooded over the waters deep and here again, the sand is very deep. you can see devastation and

here's a mattress that came from somewhere and here's plumbing from inside of somewhere and this dumpster over here, it shouldn't be here. it should be over here by this wall and it came that far away and i'm walking over toward the ocean which is down this street that i'm walking toward here, and you can see at the tip of this, you can see at the end of that hotel is blown out. i can show you the other side of it and that's a boarded up building and the other side of it is completely gone. the whole thing was just wiped out by the force of the winds and the water that came through here. >> we have 70 mile per hour winds gusting through last night and water that was at some point almost waist high. -- >> ron, i want to interrupt you for a second because mayor michael bloomberg is giving an assessment of the city's damage. >> the path of the destruction that she left in her wake will be felt for quite some time. make no mistake about it, this was a devastating storm, maybe the worst that we have ever

experienced. our first responders have been doing a heroic job protecting our city and saving lives and they are still fighting fires and con ukt doing life-saving search and rescue migs and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. the storm brought something like 23 serious fires to parts of staten island, brooklyn, queens as well as city island in the bronx. the terrible fire on breezy point is now ununder control, but we believe we lost more than 80 houses. the search and recovery operations there are ongoing. if any of you saw the pictures on television is looked look a forest fire out in the midwest. the winds were just deaf statinstatin devastating and blowing from one building to the next one. we are hoping and praying that there was no loss of life in those fires, but even we can -- even if we can save any lives,

many people have lost their homes and they have our full support in the days and weeks ahead. the 76 shelters we opened will remain open today and we will continue to keep shelters open until people displaced by the storm can safely return to their homes or find temporary housing. our first priority in this storm was and continues to be protecting lives and that's why we ordered an evacuation of the areas most at risk and why we worked so hard to get people out. sadly, the storm claimed the lives of people throughout the region including ten in our city and tragically, we expect that number to go up as information continues to come in, and i did want to extend my condolences to all of the families who lost loved ones in the storm and asked all new yorkers to keep them in their thoughts and prayers. in addition to the lives we lost and the damage we suffered across the city is clearly

extensive and it will not be repaired overnight. the two biggest challenges facing our city going forward are getting our mass transit system up and running and restoring power. and this morning we have begun the work of clearing and re-opening bridges and roadways both of which will take some time and the best ways new yorkers can help us get this done quickly is to stay off the roads. the work is well under way. east river bridges have already been reopened. the work of getting our mass transit grid and the power grid restored, however, is going to take more time and a lot of patience. mta ceo joe loda has described this as the worst disaster the agency has seen in the 108 years the subways have been running and con ed has described the damage done to its power systems as unprecedented in scope. so, clearly, the challenges our city faces in the coming days are enormous. the mta and con ed both have very strong leaders and extraordinarily dedicated workers. they're working extremely hard

and they will continue to work around the clock to get their systems fixed. our administration will move heaven and earth to help them so we can get back up and running as quickly as humanly possible, but the damages they face really are enormous. here's the information that we have as of this moment. regarding con ed and the mta, the most resent report has approximately three-quarters of a million new yorkers without power. there are something like 326 buildings and public housing developments without power. that's about 60,000 people and more than 26,000 apartments and many of them are in zone a. the steam system in manhattan south 42nd street was shut down as tha preventive step by con e and that affects heating, air-conditioning, and ventilation systems including many of the hospitals and because they shut it down preemptively we are hopeful that the steam system can be restored fairly soon. i spoke to con ed ceo kevin

burke for any assistance we can provide, we will talk to him later on, but it is fair to say that you should expect given the extent of the damage power will be out in lots of places for two or three days and maybe longer than that. there is extensive flooding in all under river subway tunnels, subway yards where rail trains are typically stored also flooded, and i think that shows the wisdom of joe loda in moving trains out of there to higher ground. i don't think there was any damage done to the rolling stock, but the tunnels all flooded and that's going to be a big problem to get them back going. public transportation remains closed until further notice is a good way to think about it. there is no firm timeline for the reactvation of bus or train service, but i'm sure the mta will do everything they can to have limited bus service perhaps this afternoon. >> mayor bloomberg giving an

update to all people about what's taking place here in new york city, asking people to have patience as he goes over what they've been able to assess so far about the unprecedented storm damage seen here in the city. breezy point, as we told you at the top of the show, that is the neighborhood in queens that had such horrific fire damage. mayor bloomberg saying they've lost up to 80 houses there. 76 different shelters are open in the city. most importantly, the death toll. they said that they have lost at least ten lives here in new york city. according to the confirmed death tolls that i have by one of our latest notes, that would take the death toll between 18 to 20 people. we want to make sure that we get that number correct to you. right now we have anne thompson in battery park. how is it looking this morning? >> reporter: well, tom, as you can just see the weather conditions this is what's going to make just getting cleanup started very, very difficult.

we are in the midst of a rain band and the rain is gusting to 30 miles per hour and further moving debris that fell during the storm last night and now some more news about mass transit. governor chris christie of new jersey announced within the last half hour that the path trains that run between new york and new jersey, he expects they will be out for seven to ten days. seven to ten days, and that is going to make it very difficult for those commuters who come from new jersey to work in manhattan. it will make it very difficult for them to get to work. mayor bloomberg mentioned some of the bridges are open anding they' ing and williamsburg bridge, the manhattan bridge and the brooklyn bridge, they are now all open to traffic, but again, you know, the mayor says, look, if you don't have a reason to go out don't go out because it is a scene of destruction here in new york city. i can tell you that as i drove down here, down the island of

manhattan i was struck by all of the tree limbs that are down, the scaffolding is down. there is debris everywhere and once you get below 34th street it is dark because that is where the power is out in lower manhattan. more than a quarter million people there are without power this morning and it has yet to be restored. that means there are no stop lights. the stores can't open and there are no lights in people's home, so that's another challenge. i can also tell you that what shocked people was the storm surge. it reached almost 14 feet and what it meant is that the new york harbor came up over the sea wall and went deep into lower manhattan. we were out here until 9:00 covering the storm and we got into an suv and tried to get out of battery park and we couldn't because we were trapped under water, and that water has receded and it's easier to get around down here this morning,

but it still is not safe. >> a week in the dark and the citywide transit nightmare. that is what the assessments are right now. top officials at con ed are saying residents in lower manhattan can expect a power outage to last for a while now. they've been blacked out for overnight. half of the city has powered loss to it and they have no power as well. this is what triggered it. a massive explosion all, but lighting up new york city harbor. when surging waters flooded a substation near the waterfront. as of now 7 million people or -- excuse me, over 8 million people in 13 million states from maine to maryland, new hampshire to north carolina have no power because of this storm. joining me now by telephone is con edison spokesperson alfonso skwshgs uiroz. let's start with the tally. we were hearing from mayor

bloomberg, is it 750,000 people without power currently in lower manhattan? >> when we are seeing in new york city and westchester county which we cover it's 787,000 customers out. in manhattan we've got about 250,000 customers out. these numbers are fluid because a lot of people have becalled t register their outage, we ask them to call 1-800-con ed, for the power. >> what exactly happened there? >> well, sandy really hit us by air and by sea. she hit us, number one, with the very, very high winds that attacked the trees and that went on the overheadlines and that really knocked a lot of customers out. in staten island and in westchester county, but what

happened down at the sea is we had this massive flooding and it really soaked all of our equipment in lower manhattan and in all of those low-lying areas that stored all of our equipment that serves power to new york city. >> 780,000 people without power and how are you gridding the emergency efforts to get the dispatches going and getting the crews where they need to be? >> yes. our first objective today is number one, assessing the damage and number two, pumping water, that's basically it and after that we will go to each piece of equipment that needs to be repaired. we're going repair the equipment that's safest to repair and the equipment that serves the most people first and once we put that list together we'll start at the top and work our way don. con edison spokesperson alfonso quiroz, i appreciate it. >> super storm sandy has knocked the candidates off the campaign

trail and mitt romney is in a critically important battleground state in ohio. how could sandy affect the presidential election? we'll talk with sean spicer coming up. plus, wall street remaining shut for the second day in a row, the first time that's happened since 1888 when a blizzard buried new york under two feet of snow. we'll talk about sandy's economic far-ranging impact and we want to see your pictures of hurricane sandy only if it's safe to do so. please share photos by tweeting us using the #msnbcpics. and here's the live shot, the dangling crane that happened at the building 157. they're working now on e for thes to secure that and make sure no one gets hurt. we're back after this. so, what hap pens if i'm in an accident and need to get my car fixed? progressive makes it easy, because we give you choices. you can pick where to get your car fixed, we can cut you a check, or, at our service center, we take care of everything for you.

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>> welcome back, everybody. let's give you more information on that crane. new york city officials are saying until they are sure that the winds are properly dying down and this weather improves, there's no way that they can physically send anybody up, the inspector, that is, to ensure and stabilize the broken crane arm after strong winds caused it to collapse on itself. they say the teams will go up and take it apart piece by piece, but the area around the danger site is closed. sandy took the glory away from the statue of liberty's makeover. it has been closed to the public since sunday and the 126-year-old harbor icon is off limits until the weather gets better. and at ground zero sandy sent water rushing into the con strukz sight. it turned into a makeshift waterfall there. >> a coordinated operation is in

new jersey, and the towns of monoockie and little ferry. wnbc's lori bordonaro is live. what are you seeing? >> good morning, thomas. we are seeing an unprecedented amount of flooding in bergen county, new jersey, where we're seeing up to five, six feet of water and we'll step out of the way and bee did not want to risk drivering through it and some vehicles did try to make their way through here and you can see the car stuck in the distance. all of this is because of a natural berm that contains water in one of the creeks that leads to the hackensack river, it broke and water just surged at midnight last night flooding the streets in moonachie and little ferry and thousands are stranded

inside their homes. several towns are assisting here in the rescue. they've got about 40 water rescue boats and they're going door to door right now pulling people out. we heard governor christie just a little while ago saying that special equipment is being brought in here, some high-wheeled vehicles and there will also be temporary shelters including one at teterboro airport where they'll be giving residents dry clothes and blankets. these areas were not evacuated because no one expected this to ever happen and nothing of this magnitude so nobody was told to leave and we've been speaking with a lot of people here who have never, ever seen anything like it in all their years that they've lived in moonachie, and i can tell you in the last few minutes we've seen drivers coming up here and asking us what is going on and they're not able to get in touch with loved ones because there is no power and phones here. we'll send it back to you in the studio. >> it adds insult to injury and

we'll ask everyone to stay in place. thanks very much. mitt romney is about to kick off a disaster relief event in ohio. he and paul ryan have scrapped official campaign stops in the wake of the storm. the governor asking people in iowa last night to help and remember those affected up and down the eastern seaboard. >> american red cross is, of course, accepting donations and if you have a little extra you can send off to the american red cross, join us in doing that and make sure we do our very best to help those that are being impacted by the storm. we love our fellow americans. wish them well. >> great advice at this time of need. joining me now is john spiteser, communications director for the republican national committee. it's good to see you this morning and mitt romney is not going have any official stops today. one thing i do want to play for everybody, the comment played a few minutes ago by new jersey governor chris christie about the election next week. we are down to the pivotal days left. >> this administration at the

moment could give a damn less about election day. >> all right. if you give a damn -- i know chris christie said he's been on the phone with the president talking three times personally with him about the needs of people in new jersey. mitt romney again, having no official campaign stops today. sean, what challenges does this present with mitt romney strong walk this fine line of still being in this race with little time left, but not wanting to look like he's making politics in the time of a national disaster. >> right, congressman ryan and mrs. romney and renaines priebu and dealing with flooding and a whoefl whole host of other issues and our priority is to help those in need and the safety of those who may be in similar trouble still in the aftermath of the storm.

there will be time to get back into politics, but, you know, we've got seven days to go. right now for the next 24, 48, 72 hours we need to make sure that we're focused on helping those in need and everything else will take care of itself. >> as we know, that help is going out to fema, mobilizing resources to help the governors impacted by sandy and the people in their states. however last year it was during one of the primary debates where governor romney had this to say about what should happen in fema. take a listen. >> fema is about to run out of money and some people who say, you know, maybe we're learning a lesson that the state should take on more. how do you deal with that? >> absolutely, any time you have occasion to send it back from the federal government and send it back to the states and if you can go further and send it back to the private sector. >> the president signed these major disaster declarations for the state of new jersey and new york.

they seem to be grateful for the help of fema and the president. wouldn't president romney want to do away with fema and ship those resources back to the states? do we know for sure? >> yea. absolutely. he's not opposed to that by any means. i think what the governor is talking about and we've seen cases in the past is trying to make sure that fema is the most effective agency possible in terms of affecting states and localities with disasters and it's always been a major concern in the sense that the way that it is budgeted for is not one in which it is reliable or one that states can depend on, so looking at how we fund fema and how those activities are streamlined to help states and again, you look back several storms and there's a lot of criticism to fema, so getting to an agency, allowing an agency to operate more effectively and ensuring

states and localities are receiving the funds they need to help the people is what this comes down to. >> thanks for taking time for us this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks, tom. >> we are just learning that president obama will be holding ab11:45 a.m. eastern call with mayors and governors affected by sandy. we'll check in with nbc's chuck todd coming up from washington and you can also track the storm by checking out weather.com. you'll get up-to-date information on efforts to help the victims as well and the weather channel shows will be streaming live on weather.com. we're back with much more right after this. i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios

because they provide solutions for all situations. how? they work with vmware to provide virtualization and cloud solutions tailored to a company's unique i.t. needs. so, you're my caddy. what solution would you provide for me now? well, you're 30 yards away from the green. you've got a bunker to the left of you and a bunker to the right of you. and remember, this is client golf. welcome back, everybody. one of mitt romney's strongest supporters has nothing, but praise for president obama's response to the sandy disaster. the president's beenec spooing with governors christie and cuomo as well as several mayors in town impacted by the super storm. as for this election the president says that will take a backseat.

>> the election will take care of itself next week. right now our number one priority is to make sure that we are saving lives. >> nbc news political director chuck todd joins me now to fill us in on what we know about what the president is doing. chuck, i just got this note passed to my desk that the president will remain in d.c. through tomorrow, not going out on the campaign trail. this is a big effect coming into the homestretch. >> he's canceled tomorrow's events. you would assume in some form or another governor romney will blow back some events. they've canceled some today, for instance, on romney's side, but they turned one campaign event into a relief event in ohio, but the president at 11:45, he's holding a conference call with mayors and governors in the affected areas and all of them together and that will take 30 or 40 minutes and that is what the white house is focused on at this point, so i assume we'll hear from the president some time today and probably not

until later this afternoon after there's a better assessment of where things stand. >> as i was watching this morning, two words grabbed me. the phrase flying blind as we look at the poll number because we won't know what's going on for the next several days. >> the suspended polling and we'll make our own decision about whether we do another national poll before the election to see, you know, if you can't contact 20 to 25% of the country then you can't really come up with a very good national poll and that doesn't mean state polls can't be done. that was my joke. we might go into the final week of the election flying blind a little bit and not understanding the impact and the states in the directly affected areas and also sort of the perception impact of how people feel about how the president is handling the situation and mitt romney and all of those things. frankly, it may take until we see the votes to understand the direct impact.

when i say we're flying blind meaning we in the media like to have all sorts of data points in our fingertips and this next week we may not have them, we'll have to watch the returns as they come in. nothing wrong with that. >> chuck, good to have you with me. >> of course, for everybody out there you can catch chuck dale owe "the daily rundown" weekday mornings on msnbc. thanks again to chuck. joining me today from ohio is former governor ted strickland an obama campaign surrogate about what we'll see this final week, basically rounding third base running into home. sir, it's good to have you with me today as we've been talking about the fact that we are seeing the president having to take himself off of the campaign trail, canceling events that were going to take place today, and canceling events tomorrow, as well. president obama added a handful of campaign stops in swing states, ohio being one of them. is bill clinton turning into the party's go-to guy to pick up the

slack of what the president obviously can't be out there doing because his attention is needed for what's taking place with sandy recovery? >> sure, if you can't have the president or the vice president, certainly bill clinton, former president clinton is at the top of the list. he is well loved and respected here in ohio and throughout much of the rest of the country, and i think he's doing a wonderful thing for the president and understanding the circumstances of this storm, but, thomas, i think both campaigns have now come down to a get out the vote effort. i don't think people will be much influenced by tv ads and going forward. i think we are in a place -- whichever campaign is most successful in actually getting their people to the polls and that will be the campaign they think will win. >> what do you think is taking place in ohio right now with the fact that mitt romney is not having campaign events and as chuck pointed out he's shifted into more relief-type efforts

and people are sending me tweets that campaign videos have been playing at these events themselves and still having a message for sure when they show up. >> sure. well, you know, i think both campaigns are trying to deal with the situation in a sensitive way knowing that so many of our countrymen and women with are suffering, but thomas, this circumstance demonstrates as clearly as anything i can think of, the importance of having a strong, federal government. fema is doing a wonderful job and they're going to be called upon and these times remind us in a big way that we are a big, national family and we can do things collectively that we can never accomplish as individuals and part of that is to provide the kind of protection and relief and recovery that we're going to need during this storm situation. >> yes.

certainly there is no precedent especially for a natural disaster of this scale one week before the presidential election. as you point out, fema is doing the best it can now based on the directives of the president signing those declarations of national disaster for new jersey and new york. chris christie being highly complimentary of what the president has done so far for his state in being easily accessible to the governor to talk about what they're facing since jersey took the brunt of this. >> what are your biggest concerns in momentum and getting people out and the enthusiasm and reminding people to get out and vote. how do you think the storm is going to affect that especially in ohio where in southeastern, ohio, they're suffering the effects of snowfall right now. >> absolutely, they are. >> i go back to what i said earlier and without trying to politicize this thing, i believe that this event reminds us once

again that there is a proper role for government and that we need government as a partner with our state and our local communities and the federal government is essential to that, and, you know, i remind people appropriately so that during the primary season mitt romney was talking about the advantages of privatizing fema or turning these responsibilities over to the state. weira you will in this together and i think this storm is going to remind people that there are some things government must do and can do and should do and we need to support it, and our firefighters, our nurses, our police officers are putting themselves in harm's way during these terrible times also reminds us of the value of our public employees and how we should honor them and the heroes that they are. >> the first responders have done a heck of a job over the

first 36 hours. we appreciate your time. >> the revised death toll from sanda. we have figures for you now that have changed since our our began now stands at 22. that number again is fluid and certain people say it is expected to rise. millions of people from maine to north carolina, they woke up this morning without power and new york city, if you can imagine, this is a ghost town, and much more on sandy's impact coming up after the break. where others fail, droid powers through. introducing the new droid razr maxx hd by motorola. now more than ever droid does.

welcome back, everybody. construction teams at the fdny are trying to figure out what caused a construction crane to collapse last night. these pictures were sent to us by an msnbc producer. a huge gust of wind swept down the street and tore the facade off making it look like a doll house.

amazingly, nobody was hurt. >> officials in maryland are trying to stop millions of gallons of raw sewage now pumping into a river in howard county. they say the spill happened at a nearby power treatment plant. a state of emergency is in place in west virginia and parts of north carolina after sandy had a cold front that's dumping snow across both states. forecasters say more than 30 inches of snow is expected. sandy is still a very powerful storm in strong wind, heavy rain and snow in certain places. the impact being felt into the midwest and nbc's dylan dryer has more. >> it's huge. we talked about flooding upnorth in new hampshire and 30 inches of snow back through portions of west virginia and this storm is massive and producing several inches of snowfall through southern ohio and west virginia. davis, west virginia, right now has about 26 inches of snow on the ground. it's a town full of elderly

residents and they are mostly without power. there are major concerns as the roads are filling up with inches of snow because the snow is coming down at rates of about one to two inches per hour. rainfall has been an issue back through baltimore and will continue to be an inland problem. new york city hasn't picked up that much rainfall, about half an inch of rain and it's still coming out of a southerly direction that's still pushing water offshore and we have a high tide coming up at 12:30 this afternoon. that's going to be an issue for the south coast of connecticut and even into portions of long island where we will still have to deal with some of those flooding concerns. so we do have this storm system continuing to affect the northeast, back through the great lakes and it will be an issue for another several days, it looks like. >> it's an amazing storm system. nbc news meteorologist, dylan drei drei drooi dreyer. >> we wanted to come back to

rochester and we are stuck here. >> all right. nearly 16,000 flights were canceled because of sandy. more than 6,000 just today alone and there are still some flights that have been canceled already for tomorrow. nbc's tom costello joins us live from reagan national airport. tom, when do we expect things to return to semi-normalcy. i know this ripple effect is big. >> reporter: it really depends on the airport. here at washington reagan airport, you can see it is still really quiet and we are just now on the status board starting to show half a dozen flights and that's it. half a dozen flights where they are looking at flights coming in this afternoon and starting to go out. it is a small trickle. keep in mind the washington airports were not affected by the storm. yes, we saw the airlines cancel their flights in and out of here, but there's no damage, not like we had in new york city's airports. philadelphia, jfk, newark and all of the airports up and down the east coast in that particular area have really been

hit hard and laguardia also. so in total, 16,000 flights canceled. we are looking at another 6100 flights today. you yknow, we're talking now we're into the hundreds of thousands of passengers and some of them stuck. you ran the sound bite with the young girl from italy. she and her friend are exchange students and they're still here. they're downstairs and they've been here now for three days stuck at reagan national irport. they're low on funds so they don't have the money to go to a hotel so they've been camping out here. somebody here in the airport has taken some concern about them and that person is about to drive them over to a hotel, i'm told, but the bottom line is this is repeated up and down the east coast and really across the country because if you're in l.a. and you can't get over here to the east coast, you're stuck in l.a. you name the city and the airport and the east coast, thomas, accounts for about 25% of all air traffic so you can see the ripple effect across the

country as airplanes are out of position and crews are out of position and boy, they've got a big mess to work through. it will take them days, if not a week or more. >> it has been a crippling effect in certain areas of the country where the area is fine, like out west, people out there are not able to get back here. >> reporter: by the way, we haven't even talked about -- i'm sorry. we haven't even talked about amtrak. >> amtrak is still a mess with its service as well on the coastal -- along the coastline. tom, thanks so much. we want to move on because i've just gotten an updated death toll that we can pass along. we have been an uptick in confirmed deaths and i'm able to report now 26 deaths are now attributed to the storm. again, that number 26. we started this hour and the number was at 18. all right. so we're watching live pictures coming in now from point pleasant beach, new jersey. we're watching the effects of hurricane sandy up and down the east coast. this area that you're seeing right there one of the hardest

hit. we are back with our live coverage and if you have pictures from sandy and pictures that are safe to send. we don't want to put you in harm's way at all, but if you have any pictures you can send them to us, tweet us using the #msnbcpics and we'll try to use some of your images on air. . home values... rising. our auto industry... back. and our heroes are coming home. we're not there yet, but we've made real progress and the... last thing we should do is turn back now. here's my plan for the next four years: making education and training a national priority; building on our manufacturing boom; boosting american-made energy; reducing the deficits responsibly by cutting where... we can, and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. and ending the war in afghanistan, so we can... do some nation-building here at home. that's the right path. so read my plan, compare it to governor romney's...

and decide which is better for you. it's an honor to be your president... and i'm asking for your vote... so together, we can keep moving america forward. i'm barack obama and i approve this message.

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common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. with chantix and with the support system it worked. it worked for me. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. welcome back, everybody. i want to take you to mitt romney who canceled campaign events today, now holding relief-style events in ohio. >> we won't be able to solve all of the problems with our effort and there are still people looking for good says even though we gathered these things, as you know, but i know that one of the things i've learned in life is you make the difference you can and you can't always solve the problems yourself, but you can make a difference in the life of one or two people as a result of one or two people taking an effort. i remember once we had a football game at my high school and the football field afterwards was covered with all sorts of rubbish and paper goods

from people who had a big celebration there at the game and there was a group of us that was assigned to clean it up, and i thought how are we going to clean up all of theus. the person responsible for organizing the effort said, just line up along the yard line. you go between the goal rhine and the 10 yard line and the next person between 10 and 20 and do your lane. and if everybody cleans their lane, why, we'll be able to get the job done. and so today we're cleaning one lane if you will. we're able to gather some goods for people in our lane and we're going to help them. and i can tell you, i'm proud of you here in dayton for showing up in such large numbers to help out this way. i remember in my state of massachusetts when katrina hit, and some of the people who were evacuated from new orleans were

brought to massachusetts, we gathered them at a military base on cape cod and they thought they were going to houston, by the way. and when the plane said no, we're going to boston, they weren't all real happy because it's a little colder in boston. they came to cape cod and we told our citizens we've got people coming here from new orleans who have been affected by the hurricane if you would like to help by providing some supplies and goods they might need, come bring them to cape cod. you know what, there were cars lined up, people dropping all sorts of goods of all kinds, some things that were temporary like food but others that were permanent like tv sets and clothes. it was amazing to see the turnout. it's part of the american way. we've got people right now that are having some hard times because of this terrible hurricane and the storm that followed it and your generosity will make a difference. i want to thank you.

we've got some work to do, but to make this an enjoyable work setting, we've asked a great entertainer, randy owens, of alabama, to be here and he's -- he's an extraordinary guy. he -- he'll probably tell you the story about a storm's tornado accident that hit his county in alabama and describe why it is that he's here. we appreciate the fact that he's come entertain and bring people in who have in turn brought in goods as their cover charge if you will to be here for this morning. thank you for your help and generosity. by the way, if you have a little extra, if you have more canned goods bring them along to our victory centers that are open but also if you can write a check to the american red cross that's welcome as well. we're looking for help we can get for the families in need. thank you for your generosity and support. i'm going to get things sorted

and boxed and loaded in the truck and for the rest of you enjoy the concert that randy is going to put on and thank you so very much. i love you and appreciate you. thank you so much. thank you. >> ohio, mitt romney there talking to the crowds that have come today to attend what was a campaign event now turned into a relief event where they're collecting goods for sandy survivors. also, giving a pitch for the american red cross if anybody can spare a little donation cash. mitt romney appearing in dayton, ohio. so big question today is, what impact will sandy have on the u.s. economy. lots to talk about here because not only is there the damage to consider but the business disruption that it has created throughout the northeast. joining me is jared bernstein former chief economist for vice president joe biden, also an msnbc contributor. jared, as we look over these estimates and they're really rough now in the very beginning.

>> very rough. >> sandy could cost when it's all said and done, the total $20 billion or more. exceeding the damage certainly from irene last year which was about 12 to $16 billion. meantime moody's an lytics estimate economic losses will total $10 billion a day, lost wages, production, sales for businesses. do you think that estimate is on target? >> yeah, i think that estimate is on target but i believe moody's said they're not going to alter their estimate for gdp in the fourth quarter because some of this will be made up and also some of this stuff that gets destroyed you have to put people to work to rebuild it. that actually adds to gross domestic product. it subtracts from the net but adds to the growth. >> one thing i'm being told in my ear, we have an updated death toll i want to pass along to everyone. we now have 27 -- 29, excuse me, 29 confirmed deaths.

again, we started this hour it was 18. so the numbers are fluid and moving up rapidly, at least over the last hour that we've seen so far. one thing -- jared, go ahead. >> terrible devastation as you've been reporting all hour. one thing to consider is that insurance costs will make up maybe about half of the losses, at least we're talking monetary here. and then some of the things that were postponed and delayed will occur after. there was a big spike in retail before the storm, but no question, devastating damage on many levels. >> one thing we're waiting for to see if it comes out, whether or not it happens or not is friday's unemployment number. the jobs report. do you think it's going to come, yes or no? >> i think it's going to come. that's the latest i've heard. it's fluid. >> okay. it's fluid. as is everything as we assess the damage after sandy. vice president joe biden's former chief economist, jared bernstein, also an msnbc contributor, thank you. again i want to go over that

with our viewers once again that the confirmed death toll has now risen to 29 people. again we started this hour it was at 18. it's now up to 29. that number is fluid and we will keep you posted here on msnbc. that's going to wrap things up for me. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 11:00 eastern. follow me on twitte twitter @thomasaroberts. "now" with alex wagner comes your way next. you lost. you lost. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home... as an american express cardmember you can expect some help. but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership.

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